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Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Hillary Clinton is Running a False Campaign

In the last Democratic debate, after criticizing Bernie Sanders for bringing
up the 1990s (Bill Clinton's welfare reform, the crime bill, and bankruptcy
reform), Hillary Clinton said she'd prefer to look forward --- but then she went
back to 1990's --- to tout job creation under her husband.

In 1997, Bill Clinton signed a Republican bill that reduced the top capital gains tax rate from 28 percent to 20 percent, unlocking venture capital investment
(companies like Bain Capital loved that) when the high tech Internet-based economy was exploding with start-ups and the jobs that came with it (of course, the Dot.Com era
has since went bust).

The bill also created tax free Roth IRAs that encouraged millions of Americans to save and invest for their retirement --- and many of them went bust too --- especially after Bill Clinton deregulated the
banks in the 1990s, which sank the stock market in 2008.

Yes, under Bill Clinton, a lot of jobs were created --- low paying jobs --- after
millions of union jobs and the better-paying jobs went to places like Mexico and
China after Bill Clinton signed off on NAFTA and PNTR for China --- which sent
those jobs to foreigners.

Now we have a service economy with lots of bartenders, waiters, and fast-food
workers --- many part-time or temporary positions that once only required a high
school diploma. Now young people with college degrees today are working these
jobs --- while in debt for thousands of dollars, and with no benefits (like pensions).

Hillary Clinton says she's not running for her husband's third term, but
touted his polices from the 1990s. She said she's not running for Obama's third
term, but wraps herself in his administration (who didn't prosecute any banker
and didn't notify the people in Flint of lead in their water). And Hillary says
she will continue with Obama's policies --- who, by the way, campaigned in front
of the tax-dodging Nike headquarters to push hard for another bad trade deal ---
the TPP.

Hillary Clinton claims to be a "progressive who get things done"
--- and she mentioned there was HillaryCare (which crashed and burned) before
there was ObamaCare. The only significant achievement while a senator of New
York was to get the Flag Protection Act of 2005 introduced. What did THAT
do for the struggling middle-class and poor --- make them more patriotic?

The Clintons had YEARS to fix what is wrong today --- but they didn't ---
they are actually part of the problem and WHY things are the way they are today.

Hillary Clinton falsely accused Bernie Sanders of "very artful smears
and innuendos", and for running a negative campaign, when all along it's
been she herself who is guilty of these things. In the last debate she falsely
accused Bernie Sanders of not supporting the auto bailout (which he clumsily
defended at the time); when if fact he did --- and voted for the same exact bill
that Hillary's main supporters also voted for (link
and link). During the debate she also criticized a company who benefited from the auto bailout for moving overseas to dodge taxes.

At the last debate, the corporate media (which is in the bag for Clinton) criticized
Sanders for mistreating her (again implying he was "sexist") by
defending his time to speak without rude interruptions or filibusters by Hillary
Clinton (which she herself is known to do all the time!).

For those that missed it, or couldn't sit through the whole 2-hour Democratic
Debate, here are the best recaps --- including many highlights that the cable
news stations (CNN, MSNBC and Fox News) aren't showing, because they only want
to cast Bernie in a bad light and Hillary in a good light.

Hillary Clinton, and those in the media (like CNN --> aka Clinton Network
News), are running a false campaign against someone who would raise their taxes.
Hillary is only talking the talk now; Bernie's walked the walk his
entire life. (And
a vote for Hillary could also mean a vote for Trump).

Here are the best and most relevant and most important 26 minutes of the 7th
Democratic debate on March 6, 2016 in Flint, Michigan (There are two separate
videos, each 13 minutes long.)

Excluding super-delegates, regular delegates allocated so far as of March 90, 2016:

Clinton 760Sanders 546

Super-delegates can change their mind any time up until the DNC convention in July. If the don't vote with the popular vote, that could spell big trouble for the political insiders (and Bernie could even run as an Independent -- or his supporters would write in his name -- or they would vote Republican -- or they might not vote at all.)

But the media (especially on the cable news stations) are always totaling the delegate count with the super-delegates to make the election appear as though it's already a done deal for Hillary.

The Detroit Free Press attributes Sanders’s win to record turnout: More than 2.2 million votes were cast in the Democratic and Republican primaries, well above the record 1.9 million counted in 1972 ... causing precincts across the state to run out of ballots completely.

For voters in the industrial heartlands of the United States, trade is a fundamental issue. It influences how working men and women vote. And, in Michigan, on Tuesday, it was with that issue in mind that they cast their ballots for Bernie Sanders.

Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton by a narrow margin — around 20,000 votes out of almost 1.2 million cast. But in a contest where Clinton has hailed narrow wins in Iowa, Nevada and Massachusetts as big victories for her, the Michigan win counts as a big victory for Sanders. And it was made all the more consequential because poll after poll after poll had suggested Sanders was far behind.

Fossil fuel interests have pumped $3.25 million into the largest super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton's candidacy for the White House. Approximately one in every 15 dollars given to Priorities USA Action, which took in $50.5 million in contributions last year, came from donors linked to oil and natural gas interests.

Washinton Post (March 10, 2016) 5 times Hillary Clinton has played fast and loose with the facts on Bernie Sanders’s record

"It's striking that, as Clinton has doubled down on the attacks, she has with some regularity played pretty fast and loose with the facts. She'll take a vote Sanders has made during his 25 years in Congress and gloss over most, if not all, of the details about it. The result is a carefully worded insinuation or even outright accusation that Sanders has voted against his base on everything from immigration to the auto bailout to fossil fuels."

Should Hillary Clinton be indicted by Donald Trump's new AG?

Blogster-at-Large

Bud Meyers writes about the economy, politics, Social Security, corporate outsourcing, labor statistics, the REAL unemployment rate, taxes and tax evasion, government and corporate corruption, and the plight of the long-term unemployed.